Rob Ford promised voters he would kill the vehicle registration tax, slash council office budgets and make public transit in Toronto an essential service.

At his first council meeting as mayor on Thursday, Ford succeeded with a heavy majority.

"It's a clear indication that taxpayers want respect and the mayor while working with council was successful in putting money back into people's pockets," Ford's spokesman Adrienne Batra said Friday.

She said the mayor was at events throughout Friday, visiting family and returning his constituents' phone calls.

"I think there are a lot of people out there that underestimated Mayor Ford's ability to work with council and yesterday was a clear signal that he can worth with all members on all issues," she said. "It was a very good day for the residents of Toronto."

With the previous council, going through all the items on the agenda would take days. In the Ford Regime it took one day as councillors repeatedly voted to extend council.

It was all over by 9:30 p.m.

"This is a triple hitter for Mayor Ford," ally Councillor Doug Holyday said. "I think there's a lot of people onside and he's heard the message loud and clear from the taxpayer and I guess the Left tried their best to delay matters, but the longer it went on, the fewer of them were participating."

But opposing councillors said money isn't being saved, it's simply being pushed onto the mayor's opponents. Those living in the suburbs are getting all the perks while residents downtown being left with nothing.

"He clearly positioned his staff and committee appointments around support for these three key initiatives for a quick win," Councillor Adam Vaughan said.

"The privilege to be in that inner circle allows you to load your office costs onto another budget and not feel the pain of the cut that comes," he said. "The gravy train has never been stopped at city hall, it just gets re-routed and in this case, it's been re-routed through the suburbs."

A Toronto scholar questions Ford's wise political sense when it comes to big-ticket items such as Transit City.

"This is the small stuff, this is the easy stuff," said Nelson Wiseman, a Canadian politics professor at the University of Toronto. "The heavy lifting is when big dollars are involved. Cutting councillors' office expenditures from $50,000 to $30,000 is pennies."